They find a crystal ball

The casino owner's private office was about the only room in the building that wasn't bare. It was littered with trinkets and wooden carvings, with ostentatious-looking lights put up everywhere. The walls had been painted an obnoxious green, which looked positively grotesque with the horrid lighting. Several suits were lined up on a rack by the door, and on the wall beside it were portraits and pristine documents hanging in beautiful frames. L'Abbee mumbled, "Jeez, I knew his tastes were tacky, but this is a step above."

"All this crap came from the money he stole from my village, so 'tacky' isn't exactly the word I'd use," Zeb replied.

"Fair point." The dark elf walked over the the desk in the center of the room, a large mahogany block that looked too heavy for even an ogre to lift. There were even more papers and toys strewn about on its surface, but what caught both the intruders' eyes was the item in the middle of all that mess. It was a large glass orb on a small pedestal, and inside they could see a swirling maelstrom of blue and pink clouds.

"Is that what I think it is?" Zeb asked. L'Abbee reached out and pressed his finger against the glass, and the air inside began to swirl around and take a new shape. As they parted, both men looked closer at the image forming, and their eyes widened as they recognized the noblewoman who'd been in the parlor earlier that day. She was dressed slightly more modestly than she had been when they'd last seen her, now sporting what appeared to be a tablecloth tied at her shoulder like a toga. It clearly hadn't been fitted, either, as the bottom barely reached below her ass and was constantly fluttering in the breeze to show off her ample legs and lady business. She was pushing a wheelbarrow full of crops through a dirt field, sweat pouring over her body from the simple task. Heavens knew how she got in that predicament.

"Well, I'll be damned." L'Abbee huffed. "It's a real crystal ball."

"I thought he was just using cheap scams to make his fortune, but this guy has some actual magic at his disposal." Zeb was dumbfounded, probably for the first time since L'Abbee had met him. "We've got to use this for our plan."

"How are you gonna do that?"

To answer, Zeb pulled out a piece of black chalk and applied it to the crystal ball. L'Abbee watched as he drew a small rectangle with a dot on the left side, and before he could ask about it, the drawing faded into the glass and disappeared. "What was that?" L'Abbee asked.

"A back door." Zeb replied, stowing the chalk away. "Now we have a way to look at the crystal ball even when we're not here."

"How does that work?"

"I'll show you the details later, but right now we need to get back out before the boss shows up." Zeb headed for the door and L'Abbee sighed, wishing that just once he could get through a day with fewer questions than when he'd started.